Invasion of the Sues: Revenge of the Fangirls
by shadow djinni
Summary: Here we go again! As if the Sues weren't bad enough, now the Mews are up against body-snatching extradimensional entities (category Fangirl), a grumpy alien teammate, and more snark than the Fourth Wall can handle.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello everyone! No, I'm not dead-there was a problem with my computer's charging port and I had to go get it repaired, which took forever. But I'm back, with a new story! *fistpump***

 **Requisite Disclaimer: As a category 'Fanfiction Author' Internet Entity, I merely play in this universe, rather than owning it.**

* * *

Time: 4:30 Thursday afternoon, spring of 2005.

Location: Café Mew Mew.

"It feels like it's been forever since we came here," Miwa said, gazing up at the familiar pink façade of Café Mew Mew.

"Yeah," Moe agreed, brushing a stray curl out of her eyes. "School was so crazy we didn't have any time off until now!"

The two waited impatiently in the line outside the door, regretting going home to change rather than coming by immediately after school let out. Café Mew Mew always had a line out the door and onto the street—it was a good thing the owners had decided to expand the place after the freak windstorm that fall nearly destroyed it. The café had been closed all winter and had only reopened a few weeks ago.

Eventually, though, they made it to the door and took advantage of all the servers being busy to ogle the renovated café. The style was much the same, though someone had painted an intricate mural on one wall. Part of it was a cityscape almost reminiscent of Rome or Athens, and the rest was a forest alive with wildlife. Painted vines twined up the columns supporting a second-floor dining area. The chairs and tables were different too, less silly and girlish and more stylish. The waitresses' uniforms, however, hadn't changed, and they spotted Masaya on the far side of the room in a familiar tuxedo.

"Hello, welcome to Café Mew Mew. My name is Ao, I'll be your server for today," an unfamiliar voice said. Both Moe and Miwa jumped; they'd been so distracted by the changes to the café that they hadn't noticed the waiter approaching.

They were promptly distracted by the waiter himself—he looked about eighteen-ish, with thick black hair pulled back in a ponytail and bright blue eyes. Not a swatch of fabric was out of place on his spotless uniform. He was surprisingly cute despite the deadpan look on his face.

He seemed to notice their staring—who wouldn't?—because one eyebrow arched and his lips quirked up at the corner. "Perhaps instead of standing here, I could escort you to a table?"

"O-of course! Sorry!" Miwa stammered out.

His other eyebrow shot up to join the first. "Follow me please." With that, Ao whirled around so quickly the tails of his uniform's coat snapped in the air behind him. The two exchanged startled looks and hurried after him. He guided them to a free table, setting down a pair of pink menus.

"I'll be back in a minute or so to take your orders," he said, then turned and whisked off into the café. As he went, Ichigo walked up, grabbed him by his shirtsleeve, and said something quietly in his ear. He nodded, an abrupt jerk of his chin, then headed on his way. Ichigo hurried over to the table.

"Moe! Miwa! It's great to see you!" the redhead exclaimed, beaming. Her friends nearly tackled her.

"Ichigo! It's been forever! How are you?" Miwa said.

"How were exams? Did you get into a good high school?" Moe asked—well, more like demanded.

"I'm great! I passed all of my exams, and the high school Masaya applied to accepted me!" Ichigo replied, beaming. "I got Ao to let me take over here, so once I serve you guys I'll take my break so we can catch up. How's that sound?"

"Great!" they exclaimed together. All three shared a grin, giggling.

"So what do you guys want?" Ichigo asked.

"The usual," Moe said, barely skimming the menu.

"You've got a lot of new treats on here," Miwa said, reading it intently.

"Yeah," Ichigo agreed. "The Blueberry Cream Cupcakes are the best, though."

"I'll try that, then," Miwa said.

"Okay. I'll be back in a minute," Ichigo said, scribbling their orders down on her pad before heading for the kitchen. "Oy, Shirogane! I'm taking my break in a couple of minutes!"

"Just don't take too long!" Ryou shouted from upstairs. A quick glance confirmed that the café's owner was also wearing a uniform and waiting tables. _That_ was certainly new, though they didn't have time to mull it over before Ichigo was back with the goodies.

"So," Moe said after a few minutes of appreciating Keiichiro's baking (which, roughly translated, meant 'taking massive bites out of cupcakes and groaning in ecstasy'), "Who's the new guy?"

"Who, Ao?" Ichigo asked. She took a look at her friends' expressions and laughed. "He's too old for you guys, and he's Shirogane's cousin anyway. His parents wanted him to come to Tokyo to keep him out of trouble."

"So he's a bad boy?" Miwa asked playfully.

"A bit," Ichigo replied. "He's…um, touchy, and not very friendly."

"He's sure good at faking it," Moe said, tracking the aforementioned teen across the room with her eyes.

Ichigo shrugged. "He's loosened up a bit since he got here. Turns out he and Masaya went to the same school in England for a while, so they got pretty close when Ao first got here. It took him a while to warm up to the rest of us."

"He doesn't seem so bad," Moe said, watching Ao bump shoulders with Masaya as the two passed each other, a slight smile playing across his face.

"Only because he's playing nice in public. Take my advice and don't get mixed up with him."

"So how's Aoyama-kun?" Miwa asked, quickly changing the topic.

"Great," Ichigo said, her face going dreamy. "We've got the next few days planned—we're going to alternate doing stuff to protect the environment with more traditional dates—and then there's the kendo match this weekend so of course I'll be there to support him, and I get to see him every day at work anyway—"

"Just how long were you planning on being on break for, anyway?" Mint asked, pausing beside the table with a full tray.

"Not as long as your breaks usually are!" Ichigo retorted.

"Just get back to work! Your boyfriend is getting swamped."

"Okay, okay!" Ichigo scrambled to her feet. "Sorry Moe, Miwa. I've gotta go—see you later!"

The two watched their friend dart off into the madness that was the café after school let out.

"Is it just me or is this place getting stranger?" Miwa asked.

"It's definitely not you," Moe said.

* * *

"Nice cover, Ichigo," Deep Blue said after the last customers had left for the day. The red-haired Mew wasn't sure whether or not he was being sarcastic. It was hard to tell sometimes.

"Hey, it was all I could come up with at the time!" she protested. "My friends were asking questions, and—"

"That wasn't sarcasm," the alien said, a smirk tugging at his mouth. "It _was_ a nice cover, if a bit rushed. I think I'll use it in the future."

"…Oh," Ichigo said, flushing. She paused, looked at the grin crossing her co-worker's face, and scowled. "You jerk; you made me think you were being sarcastic!"

"It's part of my charm," her replied, tugging at the ribbon that kept his ridiculous mane of hair (he refused to cut it shorter than waist-length) out of the way. It pulled free and, the instant it did so, a few strands of air tumbled over his shoulder. He growled under his breath and shoved them back, instigating a full minute of increasingly aggravated hair-shoving that left Ichigo rolling on the floor laughing.

"You two are so weird," Mint said. "You act like you were never enemies."

"Times change," Deep Blue replied. " _You_ , on the other hand, still act like you expect me to eviscerate you at any moment."

"Well, it's not like you've tried it before or anything."

"Enough!" Ryou exclaimed, bursting out of the kitchen. "You two never stop fighting! Do I need to put you on separate shifts?"

"It won't do any good," Deep Blue deadpanned. "I live here, remember?"

"I can kick you out if you like."

"You won't. You'd not be able to live with yourself if I caused trouble elsewhere."

"Only because you're still a risk to humanity."

"And the Mews aren't?"

"They _are_ human. You aren't. You don't think or act like a human, you don't have human morals—"

"So now you accuse me of being an amoral monster?"

"I never said that. I just meant that I can't trust you with unsupervised access to a civilian population."

Deep Blue rolled his eyes. "Please. My entire existence has been spent in the company of people I could easily destroy with my power. At over three hundred million, you'd think I would know how to control it by now." And with that he stalked off—into the men's locker room to change out of his uniform.

"Nice job defusing the situation," Ichigo said, standing up and dusting off her uniform.

"He's gotten angrier over the last week, hasn't he?" Lettuce said, lingering in the door of the kitchen.

"It's a little worrying, na no da," Pudding commented.

"Hm," Zakuro said.

"Masaya, do you know anything?" Ichigo asked.

"About Deep Blue?" Masaya asked. "He's unhappy about something, but other than that I have no idea."

"Oh, for gods' sakes!" Deep Blue hollered, popping his head out of the locker room. "You can't tell me you don't sense it too."

"Sense _what_?" Ryou asked.

"The Author's watching us again, and you all know what that means!"

The teacup Mint had been holding fell out of her hands and shattered on the floor.

"W-what?" Lettuce stammered.

"Yep. I got a note last night, with all of our assigned roles for the next week or so on it. Seems I'm the 'token evil teammate' or some such nonsense this time. Apparently I failed badly enough at 'designated Anti-Hero' to get a promotion."

"How do you get promoted if you're not doing your job?" Ryou asked, more confused by that than by the fact that the Author had left a note for Deep Blue to find in the first place.

The alien shrugged. "Author logic."

"Where's the logic in that?"

"Hey, don't question the Author and watch the Wall. I'm not in the mood to—"

There was a sound almost identical to the sound Mint's teacup had made a few lines of dialogue before, only several hundred times louder. Unfortunately, it was familiar. The entire staff flinched, grabbing each other's arms or hands (Mint to Zakuro and Ichigo to Masaya) or making sudden moves towards the walls or doorways as if the sound of the Fourth Wall breaking were a signal of an earthquake rather than an invasion of Fangirls.

Zakuro sighed. "In the first chapter, too. I think it's a record."

* * *

 **A/N: Here we go again! *laughs diabolically***


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: And we're back!**

 **Requisite Disclaimer: As a category 'Fanfiction Author' Internet Entity, I merely play in this universe, rather than owning it. Sometimes I think I have a little** ** _too much_** **fun.**

* * *

Time: 5:50 Thursday afternoon, spring of 2005.

Location: Café Mew Mew

For a long moment, everyone stared at Zakuro. Then, of course, the freaking out began. Pudding grabbed Lettuce by the arm and started dragging chairs and tables to barricade the door. Ichigo's tail and ears popped out, and she clung to Masaya wailing about how they were all too young to die. Mint, clearly confused, ran for the kitchen. The sound of a faucet running suggested that she was making tea…so what was with all the slamming sounds? Keiichiro followed, emerging seconds later with a saucepan on his head, a sauté pan in one hand, and a spatula in the other. Shirogane, looking flustered, hopped up onto one of the remaining tables and began yelling. Deep Blue and Zakuro exchanged confused looks.

Zakuro narrowed her eyes slightly. Deep Blue shrugged.

"You calm everyone down, I'll handle the Wall," he said, nodding towards the front doors, where Pudding and Lettuce were piling the tables up in a giant heap. The violet-haired Mew nodded and took off, while Deep Blue, looking embarrassed, started doing the Macarena, electric blue light trailing from his fingertips to form a three-dimensional seal.

Something in the kitchen exploded. Nobody noticed except Mint, who came flying out to grab a fire extinguisher and run back in, her MP3 player blasting 'Ride of the Valkyries'. Ichigo ran past with a bucket on her head and a mop in her hands, Masaya close behind with a push-broom, which he was wielding like a traditional English longsword. Deep Blue shook his head, confused. Masaya hadn't _touched_ a European-style sword the whole time they'd been in England; much less learned how to use one.

He rolled his eyes, cursed the Author, and finished the seal. It exploded outwards, disappearing through the walls and ceiling. Everyone calmed down almost instantly, stopping whatever they were doing and looking bewildered. Shirogane jumped off the table.

"What the heck was that?!" he asked, sounding startled.

"Why should I know?" Ichigo grumbled.

"Did anyone check for Fangirls?" Zakuro asked, emerging from the kitchen with a soot-covered Mint in tow.

The café went dead silent as its occupants stared at each other in horror. Slowly, they all turned to face the huge double doors. This was followed immediately by a mad rush for the doors. Tables and chairs flew in all directions, and within seconds the doors creaked slowly open and the Mews peered out.

There was nothing there.

"…I-I don't see any Fangirls…" Lettuce said quietly.

"Neither do I," Mint said.

"That's the problem," Deep Blue said. "There should've been Fangirls everywhere."

"…So where are they?" Keiichiro asked.

"I don't know."

"That's not the question we need to be asking," Shirogane said. "We need to ask if any Fangirls got in, not where they are."

"You have an algorithm to search for them on your scanner, don't you," said Zakuro.

"No," Shirogane said, gesturing for everyone to come back inside and closing the doors behind them. "The last time they came through I had my scanner set to detect the Sues, not to pick up any new frequencies, and it'll take me a while to analyze the frequencies emitted by the Wall to figure out what was the Wall and what could be any Fangirls that got through."

"That sounds complicated, na no da," Pudding said.

"Want help?" Deep Blue asked.

" _You_ stay out of my lab. The last time I let you down you fried my monitor."

"It was an accident!"

"Sure, like blowing up half of Tokyo was an accident."

"I already apologized for that."

"And you apologized for my computer monitor, too, but I'm not letting you near it again. Go help with the dishes."

Deep Blue blew a raspberry and headed for the kitchen. He poked his head out a minute later.

"Mint, how on _Earth_ did you blow up a _tea kettle_ containing only _water_?"

"I blew up my tea kettle?!"

"If the spout was blocked, allowing for pressure buildup—" Keiichiro began.

"I have the spout right here. Aside from having been embedded in the kitchen wall, it's fine."

"That's really cool, na no da!"

"…My tea kettle…"

"Looks like you'll actually have to _work_ for once, Mint!"

"Oh, shut up!"

"I-Ichigo, Mint, please stop fighting!"

Shirogane interrupted the brewing chaos by asking the really important question: "What could possibly have overwritten the laws of the universe to allow a tea kettle containing only water, with the spout unblocked, to explode?"

Deep Blue groaned from the kitchen doorway. "And now you're going to dry to derail the P-L-O-T with an insane experiment about blowing up teakettles. Don't look at me like that! I didn't say the P-word, so you can't allow the W-word to break again without violating the fundamental laws of your Canon!"

"He's gone crazy again, hasn't he," Ichigo stage-whispered to Mint, who nodded in agreement.

"I think he was talking to the A-word, na no da," said Pudding.

"Pudding!" Lettuce yelped, looking scandalized.

"Not _that_ A-word, na no da. The _other_ A-word." The monkey Mew nodded towards the ceiling for emphasis.

"Oh, the…that person."

"They who shall not be named."

"I didn't realize you'd all read _Harry Potter_."

"Masaya, please be quiet. You're not helping."

"Sorry."

"Can everyone _please_ calm down, get the café back in order, and clock out so I can go analyze the W-word's frequencies and check for Fangirls?"

* * *

Less than an hour later, Café Mew Mew was back in order. Tables were back in position, with chairs resting neatly on top. The layer of ash and soot in the kitchen had been swept up and taken to Shirogane's lab for analysis. The soot stains had been scrubbed off. The Mew's uniforms had been sent off for dry cleaning. The double doors were locked, the employees sent home—except for the owner, his assistant, and their alien housemate. Two of those three were currently holed up in the basement lab, while the third irritably paced the top of the stairway. His keen ears caught the sound of increasingly incensed grumblings coming from the floor below.

"Any luck?" he yelled, just to be contrary.

"No!" Shirogane yelled. "All of these energy emissions are so scrambled and disjointed that none of them make any sense."

"You have my sympathy. Can I help?"

"Stay out of my lab."

"Well don't rip my head off!"

"Don't make me come up there!"

The next thing either of them knew, Shirogane had sprinted up the stairs and had grabbed Deep Blue by the collar of his shirt. Their noses were inches apart. Two sets of blue eyes, one icy, the other fiery, glowered into each other.

A thousand Fangirls cried out in horror—or perhaps excitement—and were suddenly silenced by the two aforementioned glares aimed at the Fourth Wall. Or, rather, one glare and one _slightly-confused_ glower.

"What are we looking at?" Shirogane asked.

"The W-word. I heard Fangirls on the other side."

"Ryou, come down here!" Keiichiro hollered from the basement. "I managed to unscramble the frequencies!"

Shirogane scrambled back down the stairs at top speed. Deep Blue followed hesitantly—until he realized that Shirogane was too focused on the jagged charts on the computer screen to notice him following. He snagged the rolling chair in the corner and spun across the floor (Lab Safety Rule #1: Always keep your floor clear of debris!) to join them at the computer.

"So what are we looking at?" Shirogane asked.

"The top chart—" Keiichiro indicated the more jagged of the two graphs, "—is the broken Wall. The bottom chart, therefore, is probably the frequency broadcast by a Fangirl."

"How'd you work _that_ out?" Deep Blue asked.

"It was quite simple, really. Once I realized the two frequencies were intermingling, I analyzed the emissions of our most common Wall-breaker—that would be you—just before the Wall broke and removed your normally emitted frequencies, leaving the Wall's frequency, which I then separated from the mingled frequencies."

"That made absolutely no sense," Shirogane said. "Waves work nothing like that—"

"Shhh, just let the technobabble work. If you hadn't said, anything, nobody would have realized that it was just an 'explanation' to give us a frequency to search for to enable the p-l-o-t. Don't question the technobabble, Ryou."

The blond shot his assistant a confused and mildly creeped-out look before edging away slightly.

" _Never_ question a P.L.O.T. Device," said Deep Blue. "Lampshade them, yes, but questioning a P.L.O.T. Device usually results in bad things happening. Just take the algorithm and scan for Fangirls. We're wasting pages here."

"I thought that was the point of this scene."

The ceiling rumbled ominously, and both Deep Blue and Keiichiro made abort-sentence-immediately gestures at Shirogane, who quickly clammed up. Whistling nervously, he pounded on the keyboard until his scanner opened, input the Fangirl algorithm, and started scanning.

"And now we wait," he said, glancing at the ceiling. "This could take a while."

"How long is a while?"

The computer made a sound like a miniature fire truck.

"Apparently, ten seconds."

"So how many are there?"

"Just two. Can't you read a computer monitor?"

"What do you take me for, a fool?"

"Apparently so!"

"Can you two stop fighting for _five minutes_?"

"Apparently not."

"Shut up."

"You first."

"Bat ears!"

"Cat boy!"

"Both of you go to your rooms!"

"But Keiichiro…"

"Now."

The duo skulked out of the lab, leaving Keiichiro to finish up anything that needed to be done technology-wise and heading up to the top floor of the café, where they lived. It was roughly the equivalent of an apartment: three bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, kitchenette, and tiny table for meals. Shirogane flung himself down onto the couch, scowling. Deep Blue laughed at his expression and perched on the back of the lone armchair that Shirogane had insisted on bringing over from America. Keiichiro usually yelled at him when he did that, so he took every opportunity he was given.

"Did you really have to get us kicked out of _my_ lab?" Shirogane demanded after a long minute spent in somewhat sulky silence.

A shrug. "Better to get you kicked out now, or you would have stayed down there all night stressing about it."

"Or I could have figured out where they're hiding and sent Tokyo Mew Mew after them."

"Haven't you woken those poor girls up in the middle of the night enough over the last two years?"

"A good chunk of that was because of _your_ minions."

"You could have left off until the next morning, you know. Besides, I suspect Ichigo will have some information on the Fangirls tomorrow at work whether or not you sent the Mews after them."

"Oh? And why's that?"

"She's the Canon Main Character. Even though I have a bad habit of taking over the narrative, she's still the important one and the Author isn't going to change that aspect of Canon any time soon."

"There's that, at least."

Another long silence. Then:

"What do you think Fangirls do when they're trapped in our universe, anyway?"

* * *

 **A/N: And now the fun really begins!  
Just so you all know, I will NEVER hold a fic hostage for reviews. However, they would be appreciated, especially if they critique my writing. As an aspiring author I'm always looking to improve my writing, and any little bit helps. Thanks! -shadow djinni**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: First and foremost, I need to apologize to all of you. I disappear off the grid for half a year, and all I have for you is a lousy chapter. I'm sorry. I tried NaNoWriMo in November and got caught up with trying to get my plot together...and then a friend of mine shared an idea for a story with me and I was derailed by Norse gods. Word to the wise:** ** _never_** **let the Trickster look at your plot, he'll revise it immediately.**

 **Anyway...you might notice my style has changed a bit from the first two chapters. Again, blame the Trickster.**

 **Disclaimer: As an extradimensional entity, Fanfiction Author class, I should spend more time playing around in this universe.**

* * *

Time: 7:48 Friday morning, spring of 2005.  
Location: Daikan Junior High

Ichigo sidled cautiously up to the corner of the street and peered around the side of a building at the school's gate. The monitors were nowhere in sight, not yet, but she _knew_ they'd be waiting to pounce on her the second she made a break for it. They'd played this game for a _year_ now. She knew how it worked.

One of the monitors walked past the gate. Ichigo didn't move. A decoy. It had to be. Her gaze flicked up at the doors.

 _Moe, Miwa, come on! Now!_

Nothing. If Ichigo had a tail at the moment, it would have been twitching. Where _were_ they? Moe and Miwa had, since the beginning, started _something_ to distract the monitors so Ichigo could get it. She peered at the clock in the school's courtyard. Seven minutes before she was officially late.

Another monitor walked past in the same direction as the first. Another decoy? No. They wouldn't. There were only four monitors on duty this week, right before spring break, and one of them, at least, had to be inside. That left only one unknown. Six minutes left. She had to go.

The redhead slipped around the corner and made a break for it—not towards the gate, but the hedges and the fence. Five feet of wrought iron and shrubbery were nothing, not compared to any number of other things she'd jumped before. She vaulted it casually, sticking the landing and brushing herself down in case of any stray leaves. No reason to give anyone who _wasn't_ a monitor or Masaya a reason to look at her twice.

She glanced around and hurried up to the door. Five minutes. Kicked off her street shoes and shoved them in her cubby, tossing her loafers onto the floor and ramming her feet into them. Four. Sprinted up the stairs and down the hall—three…two...one—

"Momomiya Ichigo."

That fourth hall monitor. Ichigo froze and turned slowly to face the tall, angry woman standing behind her.

"…Yes, Sato-san?" She was still edging backwards. The door was _right behind her_ —

The bell shrieked out from the speakers, and the hall monitor smiled—evilly, to Ichigo's eyes. "Would you mind accompanying me to the office, Momomiya-san?"

* * *

Ichigo had been sent to the principal before. There had been a few times for being tardy the last few years, and once or twice for causing a disruption in class or skipping school—to fight aliens, but still skipping—but she was hardly a delinquent, and she never got more than a slap on the wrist. She'd _certainly_ never expected to see who _else_ was in there.

"M-Miwa? Moe? What are _you_ doing here?" she spluttered out.

"Momomiya-san, please have a seat," the principal said, eerily calm. Tanaka-san was an older lady, perhaps in her fifties, and she'd been the principal longer than Ichigo had been alive. Her steely gaze bored through the redhead.

Ichigo lowered herself cautiously into the only unoccupied chair and folded her hands in her lap to keep from fidgeting.

"Yanagida-san and Honjo-san have been telling me about how they covered for your tardiness over the last year, Momomiya-san," Tanaka-san said. Her expression brooked no argument. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"…No, Tanaka-san," Ichigo barely whispered. "It's true. I would have been late a lot this last year."

The older woman tilted her head and inspected Ichigo. Then she nodded. "If you were a year younger, Momomiya-san, I would have expelled you. But, since you graduate and move on to high school at the end of the week, I will merely suspend you until then. Does that seem fair?"

"Yes, Tanaka-san," Ichigo said, keeping her head lowered.

"Good. I trust that you can escort yourself off-campus and will tell your parents about this yourself. Yanagida-san, Honjo-san, here are your passes back to class."

"Thank you, Tanaka-san," Moe and Miwa chorused. They left, looking right past Ichigo like she didn't exist. Ichigo's spirits sank. If only one of them had looked at her, had looked regretful instead of stone-faced.

Ichigo excused herself and reluctantly made her way off campus. However, she didn't head home—she went to the park instead. That had been her thinking place for the last two years, and it would work just as well now. She settled down on a bench, whipped out her phone, and began texting.

To Masaya: I won't be in class today, I was late and got sent home.

To Shirogane: Do you need someone for the lunch shift today? I got sent home from school.

And, lastly, to Moe and Miwa: Is something going on? Please tell me, I need to talk to you.

She didn't expect responses from her friends quickly, if at all. Knowing Masaya, his phone was off and in his bag, and it wouldn't be touched until lunch. Miwa and Moe would probably ignore her. Of everyone, her boss was the most likely to respond quickly.

Which is why she was surprised when Moe and Miwa texted back almost immediately.

Miwa: I'm sick of covering for you, Ichigo. I'm sorry. We can talk after school, does the café work?

Moe's response was nearly identical, which was a _little_ strange, but knowing them they were taking turns covering for each other and texting under the desk. Ichigo's ears burned at the thought. They were her _best friends_. How could they just turn her in like that? Didn't years of friendship mean anything anymore?!

And, unsurprisingly, the next text she got was Shirogane. We always need help here, and we're short today. Get in when you can.

Ichigo fired off a quick text to her friends—Of course, I'll see you then—and hurried off to the café.

She cannoned through the back door exactly three minutes later and found herself in the middle of a hurricane of data. Almost literally—Keichiro had the fans going in the kitchen and sheets of paper, most of them folded in obsessively aerodynamic paper airplanes, flew back and forth between Shirogane and Deep Blue. The pair had set up stations and were seated at two of the tables and were hollering back and forth at each other, something about the readings Shirogane was getting from the small, wire-entangled device in his hand. Well, Shirogane was seated. Deep Blue was perched on top of his table like some sort of weird, oversized blue housecat. His hands worked busily, making those ridiculous airplanes and launching them at Shirogane, who grabbed them without looking and tapped frantically at his device.

"What's going on here?" Ichigo shouted. Keiichiro didn't seem to notice—he had earplugs in, at second glance—though the other two froze and turned to look at her. In the lull in the noise, Shirogane's device gave a low whine.

"…Science," said Deep Blue. He was grinning. Ichigo didn't like that grin one bit. The last time he'd worn it, he'd flown a kite in a thunderstorm from the top of the café for giggles.

"…What _kind_ of science?"

"The kind that will help us track the Fangirls," Shirogane said, shooting the alien a dirty look. "We have their energy signature, but it's too diffused for us to pinpoint them from the café. So we built this."

He tossed the device to Ichigo, who almost dropped it. It was _much_ heavier than a palm-sized screen had any right to be, even accounting for the ten-centimeter thickness, with various black, red, and blue wires protruding from the back and coiling around to the front. The screen showed a rough, pixelated map of the area, with a blue dot at the center. Ichigo assumed the dot was the device's location. There were three small lights above the screen. Only one, the red, was currently glowing.

"So what does it _do_?" she asked.

"It isolates the energy signature of Fangirls, and hopefully other extradimensional entities, and allows us to track them," Shirogane said. "Those lights up at the top glow and it makes noise whenever it detects their energy."

"It detects when we poke the W-word, too," Deep Blue added. He looked altogether too pleased with himself there. The alien shot a dirty look at the author, earning a shriek from the Fangirl-detector. "See?"

"Oh, okay," Ichigo said. A pause. "How did you put it together in one night?"

"Too much caffeine," said Shirogane.

"And the occasional…cat nap," added Deep Blue, still grinning. Shirogane chucked a paper airplane at his head.

"Oh, Ichigo, you're here early," Keiichiro said, finally taking out his earplugs.

"I got suspended for being late too many times," Ichigo said.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "Is there any way we can help?"

"No," Ichigo said, hanging her head. "I graduate at the end of the week, and I'll still get to go to high school, so really there's no need to try and help."

"Then I'm putting you on extra shifts," Shirogane said, standing up to pick up some of the papers on the floor.

"You'd better pay me overtime, jerk," Ichigo huffed, and crouched down to help. Keiichiro shooed Deep Blue off the table, rather like one would a cat (if cats were people-sized and capable of generating lightning and teleporting), and, like a cat, he proceeded to knock over the pile of papers Ichigo and Shirogane had stacked. Shirogane smacked him with the pile of papers he'd been organizing, and the alien tackled him to the floor.

In the ensuing kerfuffle, the Fangirl Detector was knocked off the table and slid quietly under a cabinet.

* * *

Shirogane had been telling the truth—they were a bit short-staffed. Mint and Zakuro were both out, the former for a last-minute ballet recital and the latter for a photo shoot, and Masaya was going to be a bit late thanks to kendo practice. She, Lettuce, and Pudding were working almost twice as hard to make up for it. Shirogane had retreated to the kitchen to keep up with the dishes, and the post-school lunch was especially brutal today. It probably had something to do with the end of the school year approaching like it was, getting everyone out to plan trips and such with their friends. It made her jealous. Here she was, at the end of her junior high career, and her best friends since elementary school had abandoned her!

That was, of course, the moment they walked through the door. It was almost like the thought itself had summoned them…and, well, it probably had. Up on the second floor, Ichigo resisted the urge to jump over the railing and get them seated and sit down herself to talk. Instead, she served one of the tables and watched as, just like yesterday, Deep Blue was the first to reach them. He seated the pair at one of the tables towards the side of the café, took orders, and swept off into the chaos.

Watching Moe and Miwa practically ignore his retreating back in favor of a hushed conversation, it hit Ichigo like half a ton of bricks.

Hadn't her friends been slavering over him the day before? The last time Moe and Miwa had crushes on someone at Café Mew Mew, they'd immediately persuaded her to help them with gifts and talking to them and such—like they'd done with _every single crush they'd ever had_ —but here they were, not even seeming to _notice_ him. Weird. She shook her head and ducked back into the kitchen.

"Oy, Shirogane! I'm taking my break now!"

Shirogane muttered something under his breath, but he was facing the sink with his back to the door, so she didn't catch it aside from a dim mumble she took as 'okay, just don't take too long'. Ichigo slammed back out through the doors and hurried over to her friends' table.

"Moe! Miwa! Thank goodness you're here, I was so scared you were mad at me and wouldn't want to be friends anymore and—"

Both of them burst out laughing. "Oh, Ichigo," Moe said, wiping a tear out of her eye.

"We're not mad," Miwa said, placing her elbows on the table. She interlaced her fingers and rested her chin on them. "But we _do_ need to talk."

"Quietly," Moe added.

Ichigo glanced around. Most of the other servers were far enough away that the café noise would mask the sound, and the other patrons were too engaged in their conversations to notice. Then she looked back at her friends. They were being…unusually serious. Out of the corner of her eye, she registered Deep Blue heading their way with a tray of desserts.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Miwa leaned in. "Something's going wrong."

"What?"

"Yeah," said Moe. "Something's _really wrong_."

"And you didn't notice," said Miwa.

"So we're going to fix it."

"We're starting right here, right now."

The pair surged to their feet in unison. In the kitchen, something began making a hideous shrieking noise. The smoke detector? Ichigo didn't _smell_ smoke. The café went dead silent.

Then it burst out into noise and chaos again. Lettuce began yelling, at least as much as she was capable of yelling, and waving patrons toward the exit. Pudding hurtled back into the kitchen to find whatever was beeping and shut it off. Ichigo and Deep Blue stood frozen.

Because Moe and Miwa _hadn't_ stood up. Their bodies slumped in their chairs, sliding to the floor, eyes rolled back in their heads. No, what had stood was _something_ vaguely girl-shaped, dense and black as smoke. Red eyes like coals peered out of the clouds, and they reached out as one—not for Ichigo, but for Deep Blue.

The alien hurled the dessert platter he was holding like a Frisbee. It went straight through the Fangirls, there was nothing they could be but Fangirls, and splattered against the wall. They didn't pay any attention to it, gliding past Ichigo to target him. As they moved past, Ichigo grabbed her pendant out of a hidden pocket in her uniform.

"Mew Mew Strawberry, Metamorphosis!" Ichigo shouted, and transformed. The nearer of the two Fangirls turned. It stared at her and then, eerily slowly, reached for her.

The doors slammed shut somewhere behind Ichigo, and a flash of green light glimpsed over her shoulder told her that Lettuce had transformed as well. The redhead summoned her Strawberry Bell and jumped up onto a table, taking aim at the Fangirl.

"Ribbon Strawberry Check!"

Nothing. The brilliant pink light passed straight through the Fangirl's shadowy form without effect. It suddenly lunged for her, and Ichigo threw herself backwards to get away.

"Ribbon Lettuce Rush!" Lettuce shouted, and a blast of water slammed through the Fangirl—and again, it didn't even seem to notice. A Pudding Ring hit it next and seemed to stop it for a moment, but then the translucent amber goo darkened and melted away, and the Fangirl emerged larger than before.

"Our attacks aren't hurting it!" Ichigo shouted, hurling off another useless Strawberry Check.

"Nor are mine," Deep Blue said, leaping a table to land next to her. She wasn't sure when he'd summoned his sword, but it crackled with lightning. He aimed it at the Fangirl in front of them and fired a lightning bolt down the length. It struck the Fangirl and crackled across the surface of the smoke before disappearing.

"So what are we going to do?" Lettuce gasped.

"Hold our ground until backup gets here," the alien replied grimly. "Masaya should be here in a few minutes. I might be able to accomplish something with his help." He grabbed Ichigo around the waist and jumped out of the way of the Fangirls' grasping hands.

"Hey!" she protested, smacking him upside the head with her Strawberry Bell.

"Habit," he said, and dropped her in favor of blasting their enemies with more lightning.

"What habit?"

"The Blue Knight habit. It's hard to break."

"…What?!"

"Favor to Masaya," he said curtly.

Then one of the Fangirls threw a table at him. It knocked him flying, well across the room and away from the Mews. The Fangirl that had thrown the table shot after him, while the second loomed over the girls, stretching taller and broader until it blocked them off from the rest of the room…and then began to close in.

Ichigo caught Lettuce and Pudding's hands and pulled them back, away from the advancing wall of blackness. They backed up to the wall, and then almost instinctively dropped to their knees and raised their weapons.

"Mew Power Extension!" they chanted as one.

A multi-hued bubble shimmered into existence around them, blocking the Fangirl, but not the _noise_. It hissed unintelligibly, its voice echoing back on itself until it sounded like there were a dozen—no, a hundred Fangirls instead of only one. And, past the Fangirl, someone was screaming in agony. Pudding and Lettuce pressed themselves against Ichigo. The redhead shook with terror, just as much as her friends were, and shut her eyes as the barrier began to fade.

"Ribbon Mint Echo!"—"Ribbon Zakuro Spear!"

The Fangirl retracted in on itself as bolts of blue and violet light lanced through it. Ichigo opened her eyes and beamed.

"Zakuro! Mint!" she exclaimed, standing up as the barrier dropped.

"Looks like we were just in time," Mint said, taking aim at the Fangirl as it morphed back into its humanoid shape. Zakuro hummed in agreement.

"Let's see if we can finish it off," Ichigo said. She stepped forward and raised her Strawberry Bell. Light flared around her, red and green and blue and orange and violet, and she took a deep breath. "Ribbon…Strawberry Surprise!"

The Fangirl shrieked as the light struck it, burning away into nothingness—well, not quite. It left a long, black, person-shaped smear across the tiles.

"We did it, na no da!" Pudding exclaimed, jumping excitedly.

It was then Ichigo noticed that the screaming had stopped.

* * *

 **A/N: Dun dun dun!**


End file.
